This invention relates generally to audio signal encoding and decoding methods and apparatus and more particularly to encoding and decoding methods and apparatus for reducing the number of bits required to transmit digitized audio signals and enable reproduction of the audio signal at a remotely located decoder.
As is known in the art, audio signals are sometimes transmitted to a receiver by first converting the audio signals into corresponding digitized samples. Each digitized sample is made up of a number of bits, for example 8 or 16 bits. In order to reduce the reduce the number of bits transmitted, i.e., the bit rate, various encoding methods and apparatus have been suggested. The encoding method attempts to reduce the bit rate, while enabling reproduction of the audio signals at a remotely located decoder.